The Ben Mulroney Show - Catherine O’Hara/The Cons Convention/A mayor with a vision

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

GUEST: Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. What does top talent really want? Do our tax research tools make us seem outdated? What does top talent really want? How can we stop losing people to our competitors? What does top talent really want? What if new grads don't want to work like it's 1999? With BlueJ, you can give your people the tools they need to succeed.

Tools that make it possible to go from tax question to client comms in minutes. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply.

Welcome to the show, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. We've made it to the end of the week, but not without some sad news. We wanted to start this show with the wind in our sales, having had a great time here in Calgary. And, of course, we're going to get to that. But I don't think there's a single show in this country, news or otherwise, that wouldn't start the show talking about and dealing with the surprising and sad loss that we as a country of experience. with the passing of Catherine O'Hara. It was a gut punch, wasn't it?

No, no one saw, I didn't see it coming. No, nobody saw that coming. And it's, look, we can talk about it ourselves, and of course we will, but we are fortunate enough to have somebody on our team who knew Catherine, who worked with Catherine quite closely. I mean, you've interviewed her. I have, but that's not the same. No, it's not the same. When it comes to interviews, when it comes to interviews, you can be trusted by the person

you're talking to, but they have a job to do. but it feels to me in a moment like that. I mean, I've worked with people on productions, and you're in the trust tree, right? There's an intimacy there. There's a trust that goes into helping build something together. And Amy Siegel worked on Schitt's Creek. But before we bring her, let's just go through what we know.

That she died at 71, and pretty much that's it. Because we, apparently she was ill, but there's not much known beyond that. Yeah, I mean, I think we know that she passed away, and we know that she was 71, and we don't know anything else. I don't, I honestly, I don't, I don't have anything else to offer except, you know, the fact that when I heard it, the first thing I thought, it was, popped up on my feet a few days ago when she won the Canadian Screen Award for her role as Moira Rose. And then she accepted the award as Moira Rose. And I started watching Schitt's Creek again, um, on. on Netflix just a few weeks ago. So I'm sort of like going through it again.

Let's remind people of what, this iconic role. We have some clip of her from Schitt's Creek. And I am appalled that my baby girl has turned into a selfish, duplicitous horror. Oh, hello. Hi. We will end up on our feet in no time. Of course, by then our feet will be shoeless and filthy and mangled from walking on cigarette butts and broken beer bottles. Rub my back.

What? No. I rubbed your back many a night when you were little. Yeah, in exchange for half my allowance. Fine. You may select one silver piece for my accessory case. I shall bathe. And if I bang my head and slip beneath the surface, so be it, Mr. Rose. I brought vodka as a house gift. I don't see it.

So, Jocelyn, you were saying that you teach high school? Or you want to finish high school? I'm not sure I couldn't hear over your husband's chewing. Oh, God. Amy Siegel, welcome the show. Thanks for having me. How are you feeling today? I'm a little bit shocked, to be honest.

Obviously, devastated, and just hoping her family is okay, really. She was just the loveliest, warmest, easiest person, you know. How long, talking about your work at Schitts Creek and how long you were there on set for and with the production for? Yeah, I was there for six years. And, yeah, she, yeah, at the last season, I directed a behind-the-scenes documentary about the show. And so I did spend a lot of time with her specifically. We talked about her work within the wardrobe, and she was just, you know, you meet so many celebrities, and we work on E-Talk, and you meet everyone, and a lot of them are fake. Yeah.

And she was really, really kind and generous and, like a true genius. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm thinking. Oh, so go on. Go on. Oh, I did. I interviewed the entire cast, obviously, for the documentary. It's a great doc, by the way.

Thanks. Yeah, she just put so much work into everything she did and care and love, and she had this dictionary she would pull out in order to get all these funny and strange words that she would use more than and brought it to the interview so she could, yeah, she was just really proud of it and really, yeah, just. a genius. Because Schitts Creek

has been front and center in my mind like I said she popped up on my feed when she accepted her Canadian

Screen Award as Moira Rose and I've been watching Schitz Creek I'm watching from the beginning again I started

a couple of weeks ago that that's that's the character that is front and center for me but I'm thinking back to the Christopher guest movies

and I'm thinking back to Kevin's mom I'm there's home alone I'm thinking And I forgot about her role in The Last of Us, which I just, I mean, she has been, she has had this. Her career has been consistent and of such high quality for as long as she's been working. There's never been a moment.

And in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, up until today, where she hasn't been present. Yeah. She also was, do you remember her? My favorite show of all time. Oh my gosh. Now I'm forgetting. I forgot she was in the studio as well. Yeah, I actually, I was just reading a bunch of her emails to me before when I found out.

And she had just signed on to do the studio with one of the emails she's in. Oh, okay, can you share? Kay, would you be comfortable sharing just a little bit of that? Of course, yeah, one second. What was the story? The show about death on HBO, my favorite show of all time. Yeah. So, yeah.

What was that? That was death? Oh, the dead, dead to you? No. I can't remember. No, no, the one about, sorry, this is so embarrassing. The one about the family that lives in the, they work in a morgue. Oh, oh, you're talking six feet under.

She was in six feet under? Oh, I don't remember. Okay. Well, while you're looking at that, Amy, let's play a clip of one of her more iconic roles, the ones that really, I mean, SCTV obviously was where she got her start, but Home Alone, too, where she played Kevin's mom. Kevin's not here. Kevin's not here. What? Wow.

I found it. Okay. Read it to us. She just said, hi, last of us, a few days here and there in Vancouver. I'm about to start a show with Seth, Rogan and Evan Goldberg about movie executives. I hope it's good. I'm scared. Yes, Cucin and I hope, Ex-O, Catherine.

Aw. I hope it's good, and then won every Emmy. I hope it's good. It was, my God. But you know what? Look, she was, what I love about her is her talent was able to shine. Most of what she was part of was ensembles. Right? She was a really generous actor because she didn't, she didn't demand the spotlight, but her, her, her, her talent was so good that she would, that it would gravitate to her. And, and she didn't, she didn't necessarily seek out, I need to, I need the spotlight. I need, I need the solo time. I need to be the star of this thing. I think she appreciated the power of ensemble.

Do you think it's fair to say she made everything she was in better? I mean, that's, that's it. People always speak highly of people of people. people glorious and flowing sort of rosy ways after they pass away. But that's pretty accurate. Yeah. Before we go to break, I just want to read McCauley Culkin's post. He said, Mama, I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you.

I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you. I'll see you later. And that's, she really is going to leave a hole. She's going to leave a hole for so many of us. I'm going to go home. I'm going to download some stuff and watch it on the plane later.

Amy Siegel, I'm sorry for the loss that you're feeling. Thank you for letting us in. Thank you for sharing her words with us. And we'll see you soon, okay? Okay. Coming up, we'll take you to the floor of the conservative convention. What direction will the party take? We are in Calgary.

And one of the things, one of the reasons we're here is because we were going to take stock and get the lay of the land at the conservative convention where, I mean, the big, ticket item is Pierre Poliev's confidence vote, which I think everybody believes he's going to survive, in fact, probably hit it out of the park in terms of support from delegates. But we wanted to get down there for a couple

of reasons, because we're also here to sort of explore this city and understand what makes it tick. And, you know, despite the negative economic news that we often report on, this city's booming. Lots of construction, lots of ambition, lots of new projects, lots of shovels

in the ground. And one of the things that they've finished on is an expansion of the convention center, BMO Center. The BMO Center. The BMO Center. And we've been told by anybody who knows anything about it, this is a sight to behold. And it is the second most convention space per square foot. Calgary now has the second most convention space per square foot besides Toronto in this country. And so they're really gunning for, you know, to make this place a destination for all sorts

of convention activity. And so we're like, okay, we've got a goddess. And you never seen a convention space like this, Ben. You never said, okay, I believe you. I'll go see it with my own eyes. So after our show yesterday. After our show yesterday, we grab our gear and we go down there, and our Uber driver lets us off at whatever the map told him was,

Bimo Center. And he knows, we don't know. Yeah, so we get out. And, I mean, it looks fine. It looks, as a matter of fact, I was like, it's got this. It's got, you know, old Camden Yards vibes to it. Like, it did, yeah. It sort of looked like red brick and sort of,

copper and that green copper and i was like okay that they're going for that retro look and then we walk inside but it wasn't that majestic either it wasn't even remotely majestic it was just fine and i and i and i said you know what they maybe they're going for like the timeless look where it's always going to look 10 years old like 10 years from now it'll still look 10 years old and we're like so it's okay we're keeping it to ourselves with it's like this is this is fine but then we realized we'd been we'd been dropped off in the old part And as we start walking towards wherever we're actually supposed to be, the ceiling start vaulting, and the amenities start improving. And the doors start getting bigger, and you realize, oh, they're planning for the future here.

And have you ever seen an escalator as long as that one, that escalator? When we walked into that one room, that escalator looked like the Simpsons, the escalator of the heaven. Yeah, I think it was three or four stories. At least. At least three or four stories. And then we finally, and then when we walk the floor and we talk to some delegates, and we're going to play some of that for you, on our way. out, that's when we walked down and said, ah, this is the part. And it's beautiful on the outside. As a matter of fact, it's got an entrance, the likes of which I've never seen at a convention center,

where they actually have created almost like a traffic circle that would allow for, you know, if you want to do a red carpet, if you want to make people at your convention feel like they are walking a red carpet, you can, a wedding, you can do stuff there that I've never seen at a convention center before. And you could say the, how would you describe that the aesthetic on the outside, that giant sort of bridge, It's almost like a... I mean, it was almost like public art. I wouldn't be able to describe it anymore. It's like a part of a mountain range or something like that.

It's just unbelievable. I mean, it's beautiful. I don't think there's another one as majestic in the country. No, it's really beautiful. And there's places like, I mean, the Toronto Metro Toronto Convention Center, they don't hold a candle in terms of the aesthetic of the place. But anyway, so meanwhile, back to the convention. Because that's why the reason we went.

I'm very happy to see a beautiful space. befitting of a city on the move like Calgary. But on the inside, that's what was interesting to us. And we realized we're probably going to have better conversations with delegates than politicians because the delegates don't have a party line to toe. They're here with their own perspective. And we want to hear from them. Here's a conversation with Kevin Kay from Saskatchewan.

We asked him, do you know what went wrong in the last election? Where is the disconnect? What's the discord? Because the money is there. The U.S. as far as I'm concerned, the messaging the hall at Caesar. So what's going to take the party for over the edge?

From Saskatchewan's point of view, we don't know. We're trying to figure it out. And that's what this is for? Exactly. That's why we're here at this convention. I figure out what's going to wrong. Why can't we win this at us? Because we're doing all we can out west and it's down the east, so we're trying to make connections and see what we can do to help

up. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty honest. That's pretty candid. And I appreciate that, absolutely. We moved on to, who do we have next? We had Emmanuel Dillon Weiss from Quebec, and I ask, what is the future of the party? Emmanuel, is there, is this convention a place to have honest and open conversations about what went wrong in the last election? I think the past is the past. We have to focus on the future, and the

future is Pierre Poliev as Prime Minister of Canada. And I respect that, but I think understanding the mistakes so that they are not repeated, I think is important as well. There will be a confidence vote coming, as you know, and I think the results of that confidence vote will make it clear that we're looking towards the future and not the past. And I appreciate that. Like, as I said, I appreciate that. But the party is not the party is not the voter writ large in Canada. And recognizing that you have to go out there and appeal to people beyond the people in that room, I think is important.

And I'm not saying you have to have a post-mortem where you lay bare every single issue and you have a, you tear down the house to rebuild the house. But no, constructive criticism and honest conversation away from cameras is, I think, an important thing to seek. I think one of the worst things that you can do at one of these conventions is if you go there and you just, you drink the Kool-Aid and you don't actually ask questions and you don't push to say, how can we be better? How can we be better? Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's your opportunity to get in front of the decision makers in the party and ask them some questions. Here's a conversation that we had with Ronan Reich. I don't know where Ronan's from, but the question was, what message is, are you sending to voters?

So you were a candidate in the last election. You're here as a delegate now. So talk to me about, you know, the wind was in the conservative sales in the last election, didn't get the result that they wanted. What needs to happen coming out of this convention to ensure that the result is different next time? I think we need to just continue pushing our message. As we see in the polls, we didn't actually lose any support. It was just because the NDP crumbled and they gave all their votes to the Liberal Party. But that won't change in the next election.

The NDP are still with rudderless, without a leader. And if Carney pushes for an election in May, they're still penniless and kind of clueless. that's true but they're getting their leaders soon and i think if we just keep pushing hard our message and showing that there's hope for canada i think we we could pull through and we see carney he keeps flip-flopping on lots of policies especially his his biggest promise was he's going to deal with trump and nothing really happens so and my last uh the last clip we wanted to share with you was two uh new friends they met that day two young guys friends from Quebec and because they were one was I think 16 the other 17 I had to ask them what the youth vote

Patrick you've got a united pierre button so do you believe that the party is firmly behind pierre boliv yeah I do believe that they're firmly behind pierre por diev he's the leader and um I think he's a good leader I would love to add to that you know with pier poliev as the leader we saw record-breaking numbers and we saw the most conservative support as we've seen since a runny time and it's beautiful and we would just love to see us cross the line next time. But that's the question. What's it going to take to cross the line? Is it a policy change?

Is it an attitude change? Is it the last election was what I realized is it was not a positive election on either side. And rightly so, there was anger on the conservative side and there was fear on the liberal side. That's what they were selling. and they were more successful at selling fear than the conservatives were at maintaining anger. So is it about being more optimistic in the next election? I actually do believe that that is the answer.

One thing I was hearing on the floor was that we were a bit too pessimistic on both sides. I mean, I'm not pointing fingers at one or the other, but in general we take politics and rules thinking politics equals bad. In reality, politics is good because this is where we're pushing for us to grow a better country, for us to unify the people, no matter if you're a liberal, you're conservative, or you're an NDP at the end of the day, we're all Canadians and we all wish the best for our country. So I think the answer is how can we all work together to bring home a country that we are,

we're all proud to car, you know, our Canada, our home. Yeah. And that's what I really think is going to have to come out of this thing because I'm sure they're going to come up with some new policies. They were quite innovative. In the last election, a lot of those got lifted by the liberals. I think they're probably going to come out of this with some really interesting policy ideas. But it's that optimism.

It's, you know, as opposed to everything's broken, which, by the way, he wasn't wrong. No. But selling what you want to build rather than reminding people what's broken, I think is that is the pivot that, who knows, could help. Anyway, it was a real pleasure to be there. And, of course, we're all paying attention to the vote. Coming up, how important is leadership in municipalities? Is it about delivering services or having vision? Well, Calgary's mayor seems to have both.

Well, let me tell you, I'm really excited about this next guest. As a matter of fact, we have. We called an audible and asked to extend the interview to double the time because I said, I don't have enough time to get to everything I want to talk to with this guy. He's the guy at the head of the, he's the head of the tip of the pyramid, the tip of the sword. We've been talking to people all about economic development and cultural development in this city. But it all goes by this guy, as far as I'm concerned, the newly elected mayor of Calgary, Jeremy Farkas. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, I've been in office about three months now. Oh, hold on. We've got to press here. Can you press the button that says on right there? We're on now. That's, okay, but that is my intrepid producer, being a little less intrepid than normal. I am not usually on the board, so that's that. You told me you had to sit there to run the board.

I know, I forgot. So run it. Anyway, there we go. You guys are having fun of this. Listen, I apologize for the incompetence that you witnessed firsthand there. Don't worry, you're in Calgary now. We know how to. Mike Droulet will be dealt with swiftly.

And unapologetically, when the cameras are off. Oh, oh, my crap, what did I walk into? Yeah, I don't know. Well, listen. But what did you? You walk into? What did you walk into? You wanted the job. You try. We can go through the history because there's a lot of people listening that don't know the history of Jeremy Farkas. It is a fascinating story of political evolution, personal evolution, the power of contrition,

the power of putting water in your wine. There's a whole bunch of great stuff there. I mean, there's a made-for-TV movie built right into your life. Where would you want people who don't know the story of the mayor of Calgary? Where do you want them to start the story? I get to be mayor of the best damn city and the best damn province and the best down country in the world. And I grew up in East Calgary, which is kind of a bit more of a rough and tumble part of the city. My dad, he came as a refugee as an immigrant from communist Hungary. I'm hungry. So it kind of instilled in me from a relatively young age of, you know, it's the independence.

We didn't have a lot of money growing up, but my family worked hard. And I was one of the first of my family to finish high school, to build finished university. About 10 years ago here in Calgary, I was elected as one of Calgary's youngest city counselors. And, you know, really rough around the edges. Fire raid. Well, you know, not every hill is the one to die on, but I served four great years, you know, fighting for financial responsibility, public safety, representing my constituents, and ran for mayor and came in second in the last election.

And I don't even know where to begin on those four years. My friends drove me south of Palm Desert three hours. I was dropped off in the middle of the desert in Mexico, walked home over the next seven months, came back, became CEO of a ranch, looked at what was happening here in Calgary and decided I was going to throw my hat back in the ring, and narrowly pulled it off. And, you know, I get to be the mayor of the best city in the country. But it's that time between being a city councilor and who you are today.

I mean, you're same person. And how old are you now, if I may ask? I'm 39. You're 30-19. So, and when you were city council, how old are you in early 20s? 30, I just turned, yeah. 30. So that, I mean, you went from being, from what a lot of people described as deeply partisan, right? I believe at one point you had your campaign signs. You deliberately made them look like the conservative party of Canada.

Yeah, well, I wanted to be direct with folks. You know, I described myself as kind of old school PC, like fiscally conservative, socially limit and live. I don't want to spend more money than I have to. I don't want to send more money in taxes to the government than I have to. But I am willing to invest, like in public safety, supporting our cops, making sure that we're running the buses on time. making sure we have the essential infrastructure. But I read at one point in your earlier political chapters, he said it wasn't just enough for me to win, but I had to make sure the other guy lost. Yeah, and that's a really messed up way to approach it. But what informed that? What informed that zero-sum game,

that zero-sum notion of politics? Well, you know, if all you know is the campus conservative club and your political science degree, that's kind of what you're taught, and for you to win, somebody else has to lose. And, you know, you can get a lot further by trying to build the team and the broad consensus and that's what we've been able to do with this council.

Like we inherited about a 6% property tax increase from the previous council. We pushed that down to 1.6. I'm sorry. Hold on one second. Yeah. I just need a moment. We push that down to 1.6. 1.6. I'm sorry.

And then we boosted support for a Calder Police Service. We put $1.1 billion into fixing our water pipes. We just got back to the nuts and bolts of running the city. I'm jumping in here because remind me, Ben. Yeah. How much have Toronto taxes got? gone up over the last two years. And this year it was a to a 1.2% however, it's an election year.

You just had an election. I'm very upset now. Okay, go away. I'm going away. You still got to spend money, but you can't ask your taxpayers to pay more if you're not willing to look internally, find cost savings, efficiencies, and that's what we did. Yeah. And listening to all of the people I've been talking to, the people who are building hotels, the people who are building the new arts pavilion, hearing about the need for more tradespeople to come because you can't keep up with demand.

This city is ascendant right now. And it's not a story we often hear. I mean, in our bubble in Toronto, there's a lot of doom and gloom that big cities are suffering because of X, Y, and Z. But this city is, despite the headwinds, despite all that, it's doing well. Well, Calgary is such an exciting place to be, and I'm pretty much the average age of the average Calgarian and, you know, where it can do province, people come here from across this earth to be able to succeed. Probably a third of Calgary more wasn't even born in North America. It's, we lead in terms of housing starts. We built almost 30,000 brand new homes, keeping housing affordable for people, huge leadership and small job creation or small business job creation, entrepreneurship.

leading in the arts, innovation, aerospace, AI. This is the place to be, and we're on the cusp of being a city of 2 million people. But with those opportunities come challenges as well. For sure. You know, you need to attract very specific people. If you are going to attract, you're going to become a city of 2 million people. You're going to have more kids, which means you need more teachers, which you have to build more schools, which means you're going to have to end and and, and, and, same with hospitals and nurses and doctors,

where we know in Canada is already a shortage of nurses and doctors. So how are you going to make sure that the pleasure of leading a city on the rise doesn't produce those growing pains that if you don't plan properly, you're going to absolutely deal with? I think the answer is really focused, right? I'm the mayor of a city. I'm not the premier of a province or the prime minister of the country. And trying to, to the best extent, stay in our lane, really focus on what we're good at, providing those services and affordable price point showing up for every community. Focusing on the public safety is really essential. And affordability is a lot of things.

It's groceries, it's bills, it's insurance. But it's also property taxes. It's also rents. There's a lot of levers that municipal governments can push or pull that can really impact affordability one way or another. And we want to make sure that Calgary's safe, that it's vibrant, that we're investing in the future. And also catching up in terms of our infrastructure deficit, you know, it's not all coming up daisies here. Well, that's right, yeah. Had that big water main explosion recently.

and we're in a race against time to fully replace that pipe in the next year. This is about a four-year project that otherwise would take four years, but we're going to get it done in one single year, and we're going to show the rest of the country that you can do big things in the city. If I had some of your critics on this show, what would they say you're not paying attention to? You know, we're a brand new council, right? So we got about 11 out of 15 of us.

11 out of how many? 11 out of 15. So, you know, there was a... That's turnover. That is significant turnover. That's a change election. So then probably the critique is you come in with all these new ideas, but you can't throw out the baby with the bathwater. You need to double down and focus on the things that work.

And, you know, I ran as like here in Calgary, we have municipal political parties. So you can run with a party. I chose to run as an independent so that I could look to my predecessor, Maragondek. There's a lot of things that she did that I disagreed with. But there's also a lot of things that she did that I did agree with. Like what? I'd say some of the investments on the arts first. example. Like you've been to our BMO center, you've probably seen downtown, the Workland Center

transformation that's happening. That's a big piece. She got some of the ball rolling too in terms of the replacement on the water main infrastructure, other pieces about Indigenous reconciliation. So I came from the opening this morning of a new holy gathering place. So how we can work better for economic reconciliation. Those are some areas of success. And so I'd say the critique is, you know, we got brand new people, 11 out of 15, brand new mayor, make sure that we still continue what's working rather than just drive change for changes sake. Well, look, this is a fascinating conversation. We're going to take a little bit of a break. But when we come back, I want to get back to your personal story.

Because I think there's some lessons from sort of the self-awareness that you've brought to your job that probably led to you getting a job. Failure is the best teacher. Yeah. But, you know, there's another guy who didn't quite. make it at his first kick of the can. Just down the road from here, he's got a big speech tonight. I love to talk to you just about that, politics more broadly, how to be positive in politics, all of that. We're having a great conversation with the new mayor of Calgary, Jeremy Farkas, so don't go anywhere.

This is the Ben Mulroney Show. And I've been in conversation with the mayor of Calgary, the new mayor of Calgary, Jeremy Farkas. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for sticking around. I definitely want to have you here for more than one segment because I find your political journey and how you got to where you are. really quite remarkable. Yeah, a long time listener, first time, I'm calling. You listening to the show? Yeah, you got the podcast.

I'll plug it online on YouTube by watching you guys. I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear it. No, I heard your story from some people who were at dinner with last night. I looked over at Mike. I said, we've got to have this guy for more than a segment. Because, you know, you could have, it takes a special kind of person to sort of take a step back and step out of themselves and see how everyone sees them and decide, okay, is that how I want. to be seen and is that how I want to do work? And is that how I want to be known?

And then you went on a journey of self-discovery, which I really want to get into as well. And you came back, did you, is it fair to say or is it too trite? You left. When did this transformation happen? Was it organic? Was it by design or you're young? I mean, is it just a simple product of the simple passage of time? Well, you know, I think everyone can relate, right?

Especially if you have some success early in your life, you think that success is only going to continue, but you need to sometimes get a good kick in the ass to be able to learn some lessons about yourself, how you want to show up in a better way. And, you know, I lost the election in 2021. I ran for mayor, lost to Mayor Jody Gondek. And it was interesting to me, after having been really involved in partisan politics, who were the people who would pick up the phone afterwards, right? Who still gave a damn about me as a person versus what they thought they could get out of me now that.

I was no longer in office, just some random guy. And it was, to his credit, actually, former Mayor Nenshi, who had really butt heads with was one of the first to kind of encourage me to just get out of the house. And, you know, it wasn't what I wanted to hear, but a good friend of mine said that experiences what you get when you don't get what you want. Yeah. And I was pretty mad when I heard that quote, but it kind of makes sense. Sure, yeah. And then it also, like, I never planned to get back into municipal politics, but I had looked and seeing myself kind of feeling politically homeless. Like I describe myself as old school PC.

I just really want cities to focus on what's within our mandate. How can we show up for every community? How can we focus on just keeping life affordable and focus on public safety, infrastructure, housing, that sort of stuff? And it was a really unlikely comeback, but I ran here as an independent in the first election where we had these political parties and narrowly carved out a path. And in a city of almost two million people, won by 500 votes. So every single thing mattered to be able to push that across the line. I guess, listen, you have a mandate, but it's a narrow one. So do you feel that you're spending your time trying to, I mean, in doing the job that you're

hired to do, are you still trying to, do you feel like your job is also to convince those who didn't vote for you that, you know, you're working for them? Yeah, full stop. I work for every Calgary, not just the people voted for me. But I do have a very broad mandate when you think about what the other candidates on the stage we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, pushing back against some of the overreach we saw on some of the rezoning decisions, the feds blackmailing cities, pushing for public safety, showing up for every community, including the Jewish community, showing up on trying to lower the property taxes. So affordability, public safety, that's pretty much what everybody wants.

And I'd say that's a broad expectation of pretty much every city government across coast to coast. And whether they're delivering that is questionable, but I know that we are here in Calgary. And, you know, right down the street from here, well, a little farther down, there's a political convention going on, with somebody who, you know, had some success early on in his career, has been accused at times of being a little too partisan, been accused sometimes of being a little too angry of wanting to not just win, but make sure the other guy loses. And he's at a, some people believe that he's at a crossroads right now where there's a vote going on tonight on his leadership. Do you see any parallels between your career and Pierre Poliaf? No, I don't think I'm... I can't just leave the money for you, Mr. Mayor. I don't think I'm anybody who would give any good advice on federal politics, right?

When you think about a constituency of 300 plus riding as across the country, I can say for the experience that I had, in this last campaign, I really got challenged. Don't just tell me what you're against. Tell me what you're for. And don't just tell me what you're for. Give me a plan of how you're going to be electecutes. And, you know, it's not just good enough to paint a picture of why the other guy shouldn't be the prime minister or shouldn't be the mayor. You got to actually walk through people that plan. And I think municipal politics is a bit different.

You know, I think it centers back in the middle of the spectrum. I don't think people are looking for ideologues at the municipal level. Can you please tell that to the people in Toronto? Oh, I just don't think they are in a way that maybe. Chris Moyes, are you listening? Of course, it's not listening. Maybe people are expecting that, maybe from the prime minister, maybe premiers from time to time. But, you know, from your mayor, you're looking for somebody who's just really getting to down to business on the running of the city, making sure the garbage gets picked up, that the streets are sweeped in the spring, that snow gets removed, the buses run on time, that sort of stuff.

I don't think there's a lot of room for ideology in a way that there is in the federal party. And I just, I wouldn't be comfortable running in that kind of partisan environment. But there was a time where you were, like when you tried the first time. Well, I wanted to see the world like that because it was a simple explanation, but it ended up being wrong, right? That's not how people operate. Like, after I lost the previous election, it wasn't conservatives who reached out to support me necessarily. It was a broad cross-section of people, just good people who gave a damn about me. And at what point did you decide to get back in?

At what point did you say, because you said you weren't going to do it, who convinced you? Well, it was a year ago exactly today that I asked my campaign manager to be my campaign manager. And he was a guy who did not support me in the last election. Okay. But he saw in me some growth, skills, experience, and I was able to reach out to a broad cross-section of folks. And I figured, you know, if I can bring together a room in a campaign planning session, 12, 15 people who did not vote the same way federally or provincially, maybe there's a path here municipally to kind of just put on the table the things we want to fix rather than just complain for the next year about what was broke. and we're able to build that plan and we're able to execute. All right, four-year term, right?

So where do you think this, what do you want this city to be in four years? I want us to fix this pipe. We got to build in one single year. We're going to fix this pipe. Right now we have 60% of Gallagher's water running through this old terminally ill pipe. We got a rally to fix that. But we're going to be in four years' time, a city of two million people, right? We want to continue to be the destination and choice for the world's brightest minds to solve the world's toughest problems.

And if you want to succeed in Canada, you want to be in Calgary. And I want us to reinforce that. I want us to be the safest city in North America. I want us to be the most connected. I don't want us to get anywhere near the kind of traffic problems that you guys have. Transit line from the airport to downtown? Yeah, we're going to get that done. It's a really key priority for us.

And it helps further put us on the map for conventions, events, festivals, all the big stuff that, you know, city like Calgary needs. What about this train I keep hearing about from Calgary to Ban. Yeah, I'm generally in support of it as long as our municipal taxpayers don't have to pay for it. You know, that's probably a question for Premier Smith in terms of how much money she wants to put into that. I want for the next four years our council to really focus on delivering, making sure that we're keeping housing affordable, that we're safe in public spaces. And so when you have discussions with the province, what are the key points you're advocating for? I want to make sure that with this new money that's coming out from the feds for municipalities, that Alberta gets its fair share and that Calgary, It's fair share from Alberta.

I'm not a fan of the separatist talk that we've seen. I talk to people every single day promoting the city for businesses, investment, and a lot of people are skittish about the idea of Alberta separating, and I want to push back against that. I do think that there's some legitimate grievances that Alberts have in terms of the raw deal we've got in in Confederation. But the only way we get a better deal is we show up to the table rather than just boycott the process. And we're not going to, we're not in any better shape if we're now part of

the states. Well, I've said if I, if I need to, I'll come out here myself and I'll advocate for a United Canada. I'll come out on my own dime and push that to the people of Alberta because this, you know, yes, there's, there are some people out there making some, some, a lot of promises, but, but this country doesn't work without Alberta. And I don't think Alberta works without the rest of the country. Yeah. And whether even if you're in Toronto or Ottawa or Quebec or anybody else, your success also hinges on the success of our O-Patch. I was getting energy to market. It's mortgage-paying jobs from coast to coast to coast that we enable.

And that's provable. And it's even Quebec City and others who have advocated to support new pipeline construction, right? They get that. And I think that we need to have a much more grounded conversation about, you know, energy period. I'm supporting renewables and all the other stuff. But while we can bring our energy products to market, we absolutely can to be able to fund those investments. 100%. I have been in conversation with the new mayor of Calgary, Jeremy Farkas. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. I wish you the very best in your four-year term, some common sense in a sector that we often don't hear enough from.

Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having.